GrumbleSmiles

THIS IS ONE OF A SERIES OF BLOGS OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS DESCRIBING SOME OF THE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE EXTRACARE CHARITABLE TRUST.  THIS WAS THE ORGANISATION I FOUNDED AND WORKED FOR FROM 1987 THROUGH TO THE TIME I RETIRED IN 2010.  I HOPE IT WILL INSPIRE OTHERS TO LOOK AT NEW WAYS OF LIVING IN LATER LIFE.

For other blogs in this series, click on “ExtraCare Traditions” in the TAG CLOUD

From the very outset in ExtraCare, we were trying to do things differently and this meant we had to build a very strong culture which could be easily understood by residents and staff.  Our overall goal was to deliver “Better Lives for Older People”. 

The good thing was we didn’t see ourselves as a group of professionals with all the answers.  We knew what we didn’t know and therefore we had to build our ideas by consulting our residents.

In the early years we started this thought process with the Directors and Managers in regular monthly meetings.  These were then followed up with team briefings to all the staff in a regular monthly “Newsround” where I visited each home and scheme and briefed the morning, afternoon and nightshift staff.  This was a considerable commitment but it paid dividends in terms of everyone being aware of what we were trying to do, whilst at the same time giving me rapid feedback on the issues that were in the residents’ and staffs’ minds.

Once a year we drew all this together in an “Annual Away Day” with all the Directors and Managers.  The processes we used were facilitated by an excellent Change Man Consultant – Tony Turrell.  We talked about our core values and surveyed staff and residents for their views which we then discussed at the Away Day.  Talking over dinner I commented to Tony that it would be good to do this for all the staff so that they could all be immersed in the cultural discussions.  He said it would be a bit like a “Sheep Dip” and ever after the title stuck.  For several years going forward we held large scale training sessions for all the staff and later on included residents as well.

The culmination of this stage of our Change Management process was a “Sheep Dip” event held at Allesley Hall, which was one of our nursing homes.  It was based on the 1930’s and everyone came dressed up and celebrated the achievements of the residents and staff through the year.  The team in the photo above were led by our Activities Manager – Mike Hallam.  Mike brought an amazing imagination to all of our activities and a great level of fun.  He was ably assisted by a talented team of entertainers and creative people.  Two of the most popular were Bill and Jan Butcher who are on the right in the photo above.

One of the residents on the day demonstrated her skills at reading tea leaves.  Many other skills were shown on the day including choirs, writing, painting, cake making, all of which indicated our desire to focus on lifestyle opportunities rather than just the health, care and risk aversion focus that tended to be emphasised by the regulators.

We eventually dropped the “Sheep Dip” title but by that time the culture focused on creating “Better Lives for Older People” was very much embedded in our approach.

THIS IS ONE OF A SERIES OF BLOGS OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS DESCRIBING SOME OF THE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE EXTRACARE CHARITABLE TRUST.    THIS WAS THE ORGANISATION I FOUNDED AND WORKED FOR FROM 1987 THROUGH TO THE TIME I RETIRED IN 2010.          I HOPE IT WILL INSPIRE OTHERS TO LOOK AT NEW WAYS OF LIVING IN LATER LIFE.

For other blogs in this series, click on “ExtraCare Traditions” in the TAG CLOUD

Gardening was always quoted as one of the most popular former past-times of our residents when we started the ExtraCare Charitable Trust.   Because initially we began by developing nursing homes, gardening was still more of a lost art to our residents, who were only able to have not much more than a pot plant on their bedside table.   When we started building extracare housing, we were able to provide outdoor balconies to the flats and patio and garden areas on the ground floor accommodation.  We were also able to build communal greenhouses into most of our schemes.

As a start to our activities programme, we always thought that gardening held a lot of potential interest to many residents.    One of the first things we did was hold a “Gardener’s Question Time” at Ryton Gardens in Coventry.    This event included a number of professional gardeners giving advice on all sorts of gardening activities from vegetable gardening to flower gardens and greenhouse gardening.

We always had a fun element to what we did and so our Activities Manager, Mike Hallam and I, went to the Wholesale Fruit and Veg Market in Coventry at 5 am on the morning of the event and bought a job lot of flowers, fruit and vegetables.   When we got to Ryton Gardens we built a stage set modelled on the children’s TV programme, Bill and Ben The Flowerpot Men.    Mike and I dressed up in sack cloth and flower pots and hid, crouched down, in two large crates, while the serious questioning got started.   We were surrounded by an allotment stage set of melons, carrots, cabbages, turnips, parsnips, pumpkins, pears, apples, oranges, bananas, grapefruit, grapes……………. you name it and we bought it.   The whole of the backdrop was decorated with trees and flowers – dahlias, daffodils, chrysanthemums, roses, tulips, geraniums and the centrepiece was a giant weed, which actually was my 8-month pregnant secretary in a green leotard.  Susan was a great sport!

After some serious questions from the professional gardener’s panel, Mike and I popped up out of the crates and started our own question time quiz aimed at the audience, based on another children’s TV programme, Crackerjack.    Every time somebody gave a correct answer to our questions, we threw them cabbages and some quality fruit and veg from the stage set.    It was great fun and by the end of the afternoon everyone was sent home with a party bag full of fruit and veg, including lots of packets of seeds to enable them to get started on gardening.

This event was way back in the 1980’s and ever after gardening took off as a major activity for many people in our nursing homes and extracare housing schemes.   In the nursing homes they had lots more pot plants and they also did hanging baskets and window boxes and had “gardening in tights” afternoons.    In the extracare housing schemes, as well as using the large communal greenhouses, residents were able to do their own gardening in their own patio and balcony areas.    In a few schemes they were also able to create small allotment areas.

In each housing scheme and nursing home, all these activities were promoted by “Gardening Captains” drawn from both the staff and the resident volunteers.    This culminated in an annual “Garden in Bloom” show with photos and displays of residents’ work.    Up to 500 people from all the homes and schemes attended.   The entries were judged by celebrity TV gardener Howard Drury and the successful gardeners were awarded with certificates, medals and cups, along the lines of the Chelsea Flower Show.

I am pleased to say the event is still going strong today and has been emulated by many other organisations.